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MISTAKES 

OF 

E. G. INGEESOLL. 



BY 

INSANE JOHNNY. 



PRICE 10 CENTS. 



MISTAKES 

OF 

G. INGERSOLL. 



BY 



INSANE JOHNNY. 



. /o 



22 1| 

/p.2 2. 



DES MOINES: 

MILLS & COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
1881. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, 
By INSANE JOHNNY, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 



PREFACE. 

For fifteen years I have watched the men of professed science and 
secular views ; and I have often sympathized with them in their op- 
position to orthodox theology, yet strange to say I could never indorse 
their ideas of Jesus Christ or the Bible generally. 

My father was a preacher of the Methodist body, and I was conse- 
quently brought up in that church. After I arrived at years of dis- 
cretion, I found that I could not indorse all of their ideas, and I 
thought that the New Testament favored my ideas in preference to 
theirs. I have labored on in this way for many years, isolated from 
both, reading and studying whenever I could get leisure apart from 
my duties to my family. I always objected to the vulgar interpreta- 
tion of the teachings of Christ by the secularists, and I found myself 
on no better ground when I turned to the orthodox interpretation. 

I have struggled on in this way for many years, hoping that men 
would be found to harmonize with me, but all in vain. 

R. G. Ingersoll gave me some hope, but I am now again prostrated 

I had great hopes that I would hear something grand and noble when 
I heard of the published lecture of R. G. Ingersoll, on the well known 
text : " What must we do to be saved T But alas ! I am utterly dis- 
appointed, and therefore I have taken up my pen and have in the fol- 
lowing pages endeavored to show mistakes of R. G. Ingersoll. If I 
have failed, I hope he, or some one, will be good enough to correct me, 
for I am an earnest inquirer after truth for the sake of humanity. I 
yearn to see the day 

When man to man the world over, 

Shall be one brotherhood; 
Working hand and heart together 

For a universal good. 

I do not believe in brute force to accomplish anything, but I believe 
in sufficient force to bring either high or low to justice, and in the 
justice of any force to resist tyranny when it will not submit to the 
voice of the people. 

Insane Johnny. 

If this is appreciated, I will next write on the subject, "What must 
we do to be saved ? " 



MISTAKES OF E. G. INGEESOLL. 



" What must we do to be saved?"— E. G. Ingersoll. 

In examining the little book bearing the above title, there is no 
•doubt that there are many things to be found therein that are worthy 
of the indorsement of all good men. For example: "I am in favor 
of absolute freedom of thought ; in the realm of mind every one is 
monarch ; every one is robed, sceptered and crowned, and every one 
wears the purple robe of authority." The last clause of this sentence 
is rather ambiguous ; otherwise the sentence is sublime. 

It might be questioned whether the mind of the minority is crowned 
and wears the purple robe of authority. A man may wear the pur- 
ple robe of authority over his own mind, but how can that benefit 
him if his views and thoughts have to be crushed out by a powerful 
majority ? 

It it be replied that it is only religious matters that are meant, then 
my reply is : If we have to put down a religious tyranny (so-called) and 
set up a political one, then for my part I do not care for the change 
I would rather trust myself to the religious element than to the polit- 
ical one. 

Freedom of thought is of no utility if it must not be the precursor 
to action. If a man feels that he is injured by an unjust law, and yet 
must submit to that law, what good does free thought do him ? If 
E. G. Ingersoll is one of those men who believe that the majority 
ought to rule in all cases, and that the minority has no right to resist 
the tyranny of the majority, then I want to know if this is not might 
against right— the same in a republic as in a kingdom or popedom ? 
If the same, why blame those powers for punishing the opposition of 
those we call martyrs ? 

Such doctrine as this : " I belong to the republic of intellectual lib- 
erty, and only those are good citizens of that republic who depend 
upon reason and upon persuasion, and only those are traitors who re- 
sort to brute force," is very good doctrine for those clothed in purple 
and fine linen and faring sumptuously every day, but to those op- 
pressed it is not very palatable ; no more now than in the days of 
■Christ, or in the days of Catholic ascendency. 

" Priests have invented a crime called blasphemy, and behind that 
•crime hypocrisy has crouched for thousands of years." Legislators 
liave invented crimes called treason and conspiracy, and behind these 
crimes have tyranny, villainy, robbery and murder crouched from time 



t 

6 MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 

immemorial, and their moral strength has always rested on this doc- 
trine of E. G. Ingersoll. 

Does any one suppose for a moment that we can persuade a power- 
ful aristocracy (who believe they are better in every respect and have 
a right, by birth, to plunder the masses by legislative enactments), to 
do right,— to cease living off the people, and to go to work like honest 
men ? Let past experience answer. And please tell us what differ- 
ence there is between a republican aristocracy and a monarchial one ? 
Oliver Goldsmith says : " If we must have tyrants let us have as few 
and as far off as possible." 

R. G. Ingersoll says : " There is but one blasphemy, and that is in- 
justice." Can I persuade R. G. that it is unjust for a certain class of 
men in this world to enact laws to enrich themselves, and drive to 
hell, death or perdition all those who suffer thereby, if they attempt 
to resist it ? not, of course, by Smithfield flames, but by starvation, 
conspiracy acts, and tramp acts. What makes the difference between 
the slave and the despot ? Is it not the sword ? If we could per- 
suade the despot to do right it would be sublime ; we would very soon 
have none. But we cannot, and if we disobey them they send fire 
and sword after us. What must we do? Submit, and still be slaves, 
and try to persuade ? This will not do ; no, never do. This is sophis- 
tical Christianity, Robert, without the hell-fire and brimstone of the 
future, doled out by an avenging God, but with the present hell-fire 
and damnation of Armstrong's big guns, and conspiracy acts, against 
innocent and simple-minded humanity. 

On page 14, R. G. tells a story about a Jewish gentleman eating 
some bacon, and God making such a fuss about it. I tell the follow- 
ing story as a set-off against it. 

There was a man who went into his neighbor's house one day and 
told his neighbor that a tyrant oppressed them ; that indeed a whole 
gang of tyrants had conspired together to keep them in a degraded and 
slavish condition, in order that they (the tyrants) might live without 
labor ; and that they had made some laws which would compel hon- 
est laborers to work from morn till night, all the days of their lives, 
for a mere pittance— scarcely enough to sustain life— while they (the 
tyrants), by this scheme, intended to live in luxury, ease and prodigal- 
ity; and he tried to persuade his neighbor to join him to resist those 
tyrannical conspirators, and to get all honest laborers to join them, to 
put this unjust scheme down, and demand just laws. But the tyrants 
sent to their gods, and their artillery was sent out — the fire began 
to belch, and the cannon roared and thundered, and the voices of the 
gods thundered forth the edict: down with the scoundrels! sweep 
them off the face of the earth ! the conspirators ! the vagabonds ! the 
villains ! the infernal rebels ! the communists ! And the men were 
thunder-struck, and said : " My God ! what a fuss for simply asking 
for enough to eat, enough to wear, and a little comfort for our fam- 



MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 



7 



ilies in return for our hard labor, which, on the principle of justice,, 
they have no right to at all." 

I now pass on to notice R. G.'s respect for Christ : 

"And let me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ I have 
infinite respect. * * * Had I lived at that time I 
would have been his friend, and should he come again he would not 
find a better friend than I would be." Is R. G. really in earnest ? Let 
us see. Christ's idea was to teach men to suffer for the truth, and to* 
teach laws of justice and humanity, buoying them up with the hope 
that they would be rewarded in heaven, if not on earth. R. G. em- 
phatically declares that there is no hell. If there is no hell, there can 
be no heaven. If there is no punishment for the wicked, there can be 
no reward for the righteous. If the same people must live together 
in the next world that now live here, then there will be slaves and 
despots the same as here. Can that be heaven anymore than here?' 
If all who are willing to do right here— to share the burdens as well 
as the blessings, and not want twice as much as their fellows ; nayj,. 
in some cases ten hundred times as much, and no better than their 
fellows, nor doing so much useful labor— I say if these true, honest 
people, who wish to live and let live — who wish to do unto others as 
they would be done by— who wish to love their neighbors as them- 
selves, to strive to make everybody happy, not in words, but in deeds, 
can get to a place away from those greedy, avaricious, overbearing,., 
lazy, usurious vagabonds, then it would be heaven. If they cannot 
get a place by themselves then it will be endless misery. And on the- 
other hand, if those who will not do right in this world are compelled 
to do right in the next, then their misery begins : and there is an end 
to R. G.'s moral suasion. God must compel them — not very much like 
heaven. Now, if there is not one place for the righteous, and another 
for the unrighteous, then Christ was deceived, and consequently a de- 
ceiver—insane—swallowed up in superstition ; and yet we hear R. G. 
saying: " For the man Christ I have infinite respect." What does he 
respect him for ? For his foolishness and superstition ? It will not 
do, it will not do. This milk and water will not do. 

We now pass to chapter second, and the first we notice is, " Blessed 
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." "Good !"' 
says R. G. ; but we are impelled to ask, how can they be blessed with 
the kingdom of heaA^en if there is none ? It cannot apply to this world 
for if there is any heaven in this world it is the haughty, overbearing 
spirit, and slavish sycophant, that gets it. We have no other way of 
accounting for this discrepancy but by considering it a mistake of R. 
G. Ingersoll. 

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." "Good!" 
says R. G. R. G. does not consider this an interpolation, and yet on 
the principles of logic, it is as miserable a sentence as could be put 
in print. How can a just person be a merciful person? If a law is. 



8 



MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 



just and I break that law, and I am forgiven, is that justice? Would 
it not destroy the law ? Would R. G. forgive me and then punish the 
next that broke the law ? Is that the justice he believes in? I wish 
in a friendly manner to tell K. G. that this is a mistake. Mercy and 
justice never kissed each other but once, and that was when the 
world had sinned against God to such an extent as to deserve eternal 
punishment, and God in the person of his son provided himself an 
adequate substitute for the world's crime ; got justice from his son and 
by his mercy set the world free on condition that they believe, and 
obey his commandments— (orthodox theology); and this of course 
K. G. does not believe in. This is simply another mistake of K. G's. 

" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are 
the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed 
are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake" (that's me a lit- 
tle), "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." "Good!" says E. G. How 
•can the pure in heart see God any more than the impure ? If there is 
no God and no future state, neither will see him, and if there is a 
future, there must be two states, one for the pure and one for the im- 
pure—heaven and hell, a place of happiness necessarily made so by the 
pure being together, and hell necessarily made so by the impure being 
together. To be called the children of God and not to have the ben- 
efits of even the children of men, is not very desirable. I fail to see 
Jiow any person can be blessed in having a title to a place which is not 
in existence. Next : 

"If ye forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will 
also forgive you, but if you will not forgive men their trespasses 
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." R. G. says I accept 
this. If R. G. is in earnest, why is he continually bringing up before 
the people the persecuting spirit of past ages. If I say I forgive a 
man, would it not look like mockery if I were upbraiding, not only him, 
but his children and children's children, on every possible occasion, 
.and even making a business of it ? I say would this be compatible 
with forgiveness ? I think not. 

But again, is it possible to forgive an injury if there is not repara- 
tion for the injury ? I answer no. To thus forgive injuries is to cor- 
rupt even God. There is no alternative between stern justice and cor-' 
ruption. If we forgive men they will learn to do wrong in the hope 
•of forgiveness. If I deserve death I should not be allowed to live. 
The question is, do I deserve death ? If the just answer is yes, it is 
a crime to forgive me, and the establishment of a precedent for wrong 
doing. If I deserve to be imprisoned, it is a crime to commute the 
sentence. If you commute the sentence for me, you must commute 
it for all, or you are partial, unjust— not to be trusted. J ustice is stern 
-and inflexible. 

" And every one that has forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or 
father, or mother, shall receive an hundred fold and shall inherit eter- 



MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 9 

nal life." Says R. G. most emphatically, "Christ never said it, never!" 
Why not ? How many thousands have done it ? All philosophers 
agree that the best construction that can be rendered must be put on 
a man's saying. Thousands followed Luther, and many suffered for 
it. Was it for Luther's sake ? certainly not ; but for what they con- 
ceived to be the truth that Luther taught ; and it needs no proof that 
many left both houses and lands, wives and children, fathers and 
mothers, sisters and brothers, for what they conceived to be the truth. 
They did not, as R. G. and others would, for their own purpose like 
to put it, forsake their houses and relations ; but they chose rather to 
leave them than sacrifice their conscience — their own conceptions of 
the truth ; yes, and sacrificed their own lives also. 

They did not wish to do so, neither did Christ teach them to do so, 
but commended them for so doing, and promised a greater reward for 
their heroism. They still honored their fathers and mothers, but they 
were compelled to forsake the one for the other. They were compelled 
to give up either their relations or what they conceived to be the 
truth. Huss, Latimer and Ridley did it. Bruno, Servitus, Penn 
and good old Roger Williams did it. I think Holyoke had a touch of 
it, and Bradlaugh and Anne Besant. Wesley did not escape. But 
enough, my object is only to show R. G. is mistaken. Next, we will 
turn to chapter third. 

"And he said unto them, go ye into all the world, and preach the 
gospel to every creature. He that believeth shall be saved, and he 
that believeth not shall be damned." R. G. says, " This is the most 
infamous passage in the Bible, Christ never said it. No sensible man 
ever said it." Let us see. What is it to believe ? Can we conceive of 
a man believing anything without being incited to action ? I think not. 
Take an example. Here is a man who believes that Nihilism is right 
in Russia. Can he conscientiously believe that, and not do anything 
toward the cause ? I think not. Can a true man conscientiously be- 
lieve that it is wrong and be absolutely dormant? I think not. Then 
belief incites to action. If then the gospel consisted of the good 
things which R. G. has already indorsed, why would it be infamous to . 
say, he that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall 
be damned ? Does not R. G. know that Biblical scholars agree that 
the word damned means condemned, and does he not see that the 
sense of the text warrants this conclusion ? 

If so, then is it not plain that any movement for the benefit of man- 
kind might appropriate this text? but put the worst construction 
you can on it, and if there is any such a thing as damnation, it cer- 
tainly could not be infamous to say, those that believe shall be saved, 
and those that believe not, shall be damned. Do not men save them- 
selves from infamy and execration by standing heroically for the 
right, while others are damned to everlasting infamy and execration 
for taking sides against truth, justice and humanity ? If it be replied 



10 



MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 



that the gentleman is taking the theological construction, I wish to 
know how a man, who, as Christ did, honestly believed in a future 
state and rewards and punishments for the righteous and unrighteous, 
could be infamous for teaching that those who believed should be 
saved, and those who believed not, should be damned ? Or why should 
a man be shocked at the idea that God will banish a man from the 
good eternally, if he can conceive that God will make some happy to 
all eternity? 

We have already shown that if there is a place for the good, there 
must be a place for the bad, because the bad and the good cannot live 
together and be happy. If, then, it was only annihilation for the bad, 
while the good were blessed with eternal life, would it not be even 
famous to teach he that believeth, and acteth accordingly, shall be 
saved, while he that believeth not, and acteth accordingly, shall be 
damned. 

Did not the immortal Lincoln say, in effect, to the South, " He that 
believeth in the Union shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall 
be damned ?" 

What can a man lose that is of more value to him than his life ; 
if he is condemned to death, or to a dungeon for life, is he not damned 
enough ? And is it not, as far as this life is concerned, forever ? 

]STow suppose that a man had committed a crime justly demanding 
the penalty of death, or a dungeon for life, who would feel for him ? 
Truth could not. Truth has no pity for untruth ; they are deadly ene- 
mies to each other, and it is only affectation to say we love the man but 
not the deed. We might as well say, we love the cause but not the 
effect. 

If a man earns eternal annihilation, or eternal damnation, it is af- ' 
f ectation to say that it will make a man unhappy who has earned eter- 
nal life. We might as well say that it would make a man unhappy 
who had earned the confidence and the best gift of the American peo- 
ple, because another had earned their execration and banishment from 
them by death. 

R. G. says, "No man can control his belief. You hear evidence 
for and against, and the integrity of the soul stands at the scales and 
sees which side rises and which side falls. You cannot believe as you 
wish, you must believe as you must." 

If R. G. is correct, then who is culpable for any action whatever ? 
A man must either believe that he is right when he does what others 
call wrong, or he must do it in spite of his belief— believing one thing 
and doing another, and if he can control his actions in this way it 
looks as if he could control his belief; but if he cannot control 
his belief he cannot control his actions. Actions follow earnest 
belief. Sir Humphrey Davy conceived the idea of the miner's 
safety lamp, and he believed that he could make an instrument 
that would be beneficial to the miner; he went to work on the 



MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 



strength of his belief and accomplished his object. He no longer 
believed he could do it. He knew he could. "Faith (or belief), 
is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things 
not seen." The evidence we have of anything we believe is simply 
the evidence of our own senses, our ideality— imagination ; but the 
evidence we see in the scales is demonstrative of truth. A person's 
belief is governed a great deal by wish or desire. 

Two men start out some morning in search of a missing horse. They 
look earnestly in every direction ; they see something away off, and 
they look and look till they think they see the horse, the more they 
look, and their hope and wish acting with their imagination, they think 
they see him stir ; after a while they believe it is the horse they are in 
search of ; they start on in full confidence, but they find, when their 
demonstrative faculties come in contact with the object, it is only a 
peculiar old stump. But when they find the horse, they no longer say 
I believe it is he, but there he is for sure this time. And this is the 
reason why we have so many different beliefs about things that can- 
not be demonstrated. A man has so much self esteem, little casuality, 
and little conscientiousness he is easily led to imagine that he is better 
than other people, and after awhile he believes he is, and his belief 
grows so strong that he will have a man put to death, who in reality 
is better than he, for presuming to be his equal. 

That "man must believe as he must " does not alter the fact that his 
belief is based on his wish and imagination. If he believes as he 
must, then he cannot help his wish and imagination. 

God does not punish for sin against himself no more than a king or 
a republic does. It is for crime against his fellow man that God says 
he will punish man. 

If " every letter of this passage has been sword and fagot, every 
word dungeon and chain," what caused all the brutal persecution 
before it was ever heard of, or that church came into power. I want 
to tell R. G. this is a mistake and that Christians never did persecute 
anybody. Christ never taught them to persecute anybody; all the 
persecution that the woild has seen has been by legislative enactments, 
and not carried out by Christians simply because they were Christians 
but because it was the law ; because the people were not fit for any 
higher standard of morals ; because they did not understand the sub- 
lime spirit of Christ. 

Roberts, a barrister of England, once said that " tyranny and op- 
pression were the food that God had used to bring men to their 
senses," and it would appear that without it there can be no progress , 
for it seems as though it were the schoolmaster to bring us to good, 
and the would-be gods of this world had better take warning, they had 
better believe that injustice begets injustice, and if they do not believe 
and get baptized with the truth, they will find after it is too late that 
their damnation is sure. Christ taught a practical doctrine, and so 



1 2 



MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 



plain that a wayfaring man though a fool in other matters need not 
err therein. He foretold the damnation of Jerusalem. Another 
example : and one of the scribes came and having heard them reason- 
ing together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked 
him which is the first commandment of all? and Jesus answered 
him, (see Mark xii, 28-34.) Can anything be more sublime than this ? 
Are the objectors to the past and present state of the churches pre- 
pared to do this— to love their neighbors as themselves ? Do not say 
it cannot be done, but rather say the truth — we do not "want to do it, 
because it can be done. In conversation with a minister some years 
ago, he said we could not love our neighbors as ourselves ; and here is 
the illustration which he drew: "If you and another man were fast 
in a hole and could not get out, would you forget yourself and help 
him out." It will be evident that if I did that— saved my neighbor in 
preference to myself, I would love my neighbor better than myself. 
If I got out myself and then helped him out, then I would love him 
as myself. If I wish him to have the same comforts in this world as 
I have, then I love him as myself ; but if I get up some scheme to get 
out of men's earnings from ten to ten thousand times as much as they 
get for themselves, then I love myself ten, or ten thousand times bet- 
ter than my neighbors; if the latter, I would be a tyrannical despot, 
if the former a communist. Christ was a communist, and every 
Christian must necessarily be one, otherwise he is an ignorant profes- 
sor. A communist is simply a man who believes in co-operation, and 
that every one must work for the good of the whole, each to share the 
hurden as well as the blessing. This is the doctrine of Christ and his 
apostles as against the doctrines of despotism. Whether they emanate 
from the pontificial chamber, or republican legislative hall, they are 
synonymous, and they are tyrants who help perpetuate them whether 
republicans or kings ; and in Christ's stead I repeat this text again, to 
everybody, " Go ye into all the world and preach this gospel to every 
creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he 
that believeth not shall be damned." Ye hypocrites, who strain at a 
gnat and swallow a camel. We have had already too much breaking 
■down of one power to set up another. If we must have a change we 
want a radical change— a thorough restitution of all things, and we 
want preachers to practice what they preach, or, in the language of 
Christ, we say to all, both political and religious, " Ye hypocrites how 
can ye escape the damnation of hell ? " 

We now pass to chapter ninth, on page 73. K. G. says, " That church 
(the Presbyterian) teaches that infinite innocence was sacrificed for 
me ! I do not want it ! * * I do not wish to be a winged 
pauper of the skies." 

I am glad he does not. I hope he honestly earns all he gets on earth. 
I am confident he wont be an angel of the skies unless he earns it. I 
don't like to be personal, but is he earning, or has he earned r.n honest 



MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 



1 3 



living in this world ; say, as he would have to do if all men were as 
witty and wise as he is ? 

If we were rid of all the churches, and all the preachers, and had E. 
G-.'s in stead, I want to know how much per cent we would gain by 
the books? As to not wanting innocence to suffer for him, let me 
tell him candidly that infinite innocence has always suffered, and is 
suffering now, for him and such as he. What legitimate labor is he 
doing for a living ; is he plowing or sowing, or helping to make a plow, 
or in any shape, either directly or indirectly, making one blade of 
grass to grow ? Let me tell him, and all such as he, that they are 
paupers of the earth— that some one else is working to keep them, and 
they are not returning an equivalent. If a man is living off the 
profits of his property some one else makes those profits, consequently 
such are paupers. When the men of this world get as wise as he is 
(but I think I hear him say they never will) those fellows will all 
have to come down and work for an honest living, instead of living 
off other people. I do not, nor would I, begrudge a man pay for legit- 
imate intellectual work ; but when men get knowledge and courage 
enough to demand justice, we wont need any more than any man 
qualified will be able to perform besides working for an honest liv- 
ing. 

If K. G. loves the man and hates the deed, why does he not agitate 
for the repeal of all criminal laws and rest on persuasion ? If he can- 
not possibly live in heaven, and enjoy it while some rascal must en- 
dure hell, the place of his own choosing and just earning, though it 
were his own mother, how can he be happy now, when he sees so many 
people in hell, while he is in heaven, comparatively speaking ? If he is 
so sympathetic a being that he can sympathize with devils, how can 
he be happy at all by seeing so many of his fellow beings suffer pain 
during life, and suffering premature death by over-work, and all the 
consequence of unjust laws, which could be easily changed, if it were 
not for him, and such as he, continually preaching against it? The 
idea that some men have ; namely, why cannot they do as I do, is as 
good logic as it would be for the President to say : why, I got to be 
President, why don't they all get to be President ? Because a man is 
doing the drudgery while another is doing finer and easier work, is 
that a reason that he should have twenty or thirty times less pay, and 
less comfort ? 

If K. G-. will take the pains he will find as much suffering among in- 
nocent humanity as would burst his heart, if he is the man he pro- 
fesses to be ; and instead of trying to benefit them he is robbing them 
of all the consolation they have ; viz., their hope and consolation that 
in the next world they will be freed from the tyrant's grasp— safe in 
heaven,— while they see the tyrant writhing in hell, calling for a drop 
of water to cool his parched tongue, which cannot be granted him ; 
and which he certainly does not deserve. 



54 



MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 



The present moment is our ain, 
The neist we never saw." 

Or may never see; so that the present, as far as we are concerned, 
is ours, and man wants all the happiness now, just now, that he has a 
right for; and those who believe in civilization, which means nothing 
if it does not mean even-handed justice against old barbarism— get- 
ting all a man can by superior force, like the hog— must try (to prove 
they are not hypocrites) to destroy all unjust laws which rob the 
hard-working population out of their just earnings, and make them 
slaves, wliile a certain class — a few, are enabled to live in woeful ex- 
travagance and prodigality, while they never help to earn anything 
at all. 

If Ii. G. thinks this state of things can stand he is most miserably 
devoid of true philosophy and logic. Doctors of medicine, both for 
the physical body and body politic, have been tinkering, through ages 
of ignorance, the effect instead of the cause ; but the modern scientist 
in physiology says : in order to cure disease we must find out and re- 
move the cause, and the effect will cease ; that it is of no avail to treat 
the effect ; and I think this is an axiom. And the doctors of the body 
politic will have to adopt the same principle, and remove the cause, 
whatever it be, or the body politic cannot be preserved from terrible 
epidemics. It is imbecility to stand and weep, and hesitate to take a 
limb off, when you see that if it is not done the whole body will go 
to destruction ; and it is just as much so to talk of saving the gan- 
grenous part of the body politic, and the body not to be destroyed ; 
and it is as easy to persuade the gangrenous part of the physical body 
to give up its hold as to persuade the gangrene of the body politic to 
quietly give up its hold. It must be purged out or cut out. 

I would recommend to R. G. Ingersoll the doctrines of Jefferson and 
John Stuart Mill. (They want to be studied by the present genera- 
tion.) And until he studies them thoroughly, and refutes them, to 
cease leading the public astray by his crying sophistry, unphilosophi- 
cal and illogical silliness. Let me impress on his mind that truth and 
justice cannot weep on account of the destruction of untruth and in- 
justice, not even if it had to suffer in a thousand hells to all eternity. 
Immortal beings are not to be supposed less just than mortal beings. 
If in another world the term of life is eternal, then every other thing 
will be in harmony therewith ; and when they sentence a man for 
life, it is eternal ; and if punishment is connected therewith it must 
be eternal. And if, when I go to the eternal state, I have no other 
character to present than an overbearing, outrageous and extortionary 
one— one who would never believe in justice— one that always exer- 
cised lordship over my fellow, by abuse of power ; what do you sup- 
pose they would do? Do you suppose they would say : well, you have 



MISTAKES OF R. G. INGERSOLL. 



15 



been a most shameful character in the place you have left, but we will 
give you a trial? No, sir: infinite wisdom knows that— 

" Sinners that grow old in sin, 
Are hardened in their crimes." 

And would reply : " Depart ye cursed," we tolerate no such characters 
here, we love our neighbors as ourselves. 

If we have no heaven to hope for in the future, where God will do 
us justice, then, sir, we must cease to persuade, and demand justice 
here ; and rather than surfer injustice at those tyrants' hands, nobly 
die,— the innocent for the guilty. And he is an ignorant sycophant, 
and a cringing, cowardly slave, who, after his eyes are opened, does not 
make that demand. 

" O Thou ! who poured the patriotic tide, 
Tbat streamed through " Washington's " undaunted heart ; 

Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, 
Or nobly die, the second glorious part. 

[The patriots' God, peculiarly thou art, 
His friend, inspirer, guardian and reward,] 

Oh never,, never," human rights "desert; 
But still the patriot and the patriot bard, 

In bright succession rise, our ornament and guard." 



RD-17 




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